COMMON PETCHARY. 185 



they draw near to houses, and as the temperature 

 of this season in these climates, has much the cha- 

 racter of spring-time in France, it would seem 

 that the prevailing coolness and freshness fills them 

 with life and gaiety. Indeed never are they seen 

 so full of clatter, and so cheerful as in the months 

 of November and December ; they then tease each 

 other, and dash along somersetting (voltigani) one 

 after the other, as a sort of prelude to love-mak- 

 ing.' " My friend again writes me on the 30th of 

 April : " As I lay fever-wake on the morning of 

 the 27th, I heard again the Loggerhead Tyrant 

 singing most musically his day-dawn salutation of 

 pipi-pihou. My sister, who listened to the early 

 songster too, thinks that OP, PP, P, Q, is his morn- 

 ing lesson; and it is, perhaps, the closest resem- 

 blance to his chant. He is a scholar after the 

 fashion of modern Infant schools. His alphabet 

 and multiplication-table are a song. He repeated 

 his lesson the following morning, but I have slept 

 so soundly since, that I cannot say whether he has 

 continued to wake to his learning at the firing of 

 the Port Royal gun." 



